Ordeal of the Fire Island Parking Permits

AFTER years of trying to find ways to get on and off Fire Island in the winter Margaret Tannen, a single mother living year-round in Fair Harbor, has obtained one of the 145 off-season driving permits for the Fire Island National Seashore.

Life was "a nightmare" for the three years that she spent on the waiting list, she said. Ms. Tannen could not go to her doctor in Manhattan, lost her job as a security guard, was unable to take courses to be certified as a health-care worker and had problems entering her son in an enrichment program at C. W. Post College in Brentwood.

She became a "beach bandit," she said, receiving three tickets last year for driving illegally on Fire Island.

In March she reached the top of the seashore waiting list.

Some residents question the system, which has pitted neighbor against neighbor in fights to acquire and retain the permits that are supposed to be only for year-round residents.

"The residency issue is an ugly situation, and it's getting worse," said Sedat Beqaj (pronounced beh-KAI), who lives year-round in Saltaire. "Abuses are flagrant when people have a second residence in the city and use a car for convenience."

The president of the Year-Round Resident's Association, Bruce Danziger, said: "It becomes an issue if there are some needy people on the waiting list and if people with political connections, financial endowments or tenacity get moved up. But in the scheme of things those people will be discovered."

Federal law bans cars on the island in the summer. In the winter homeowners with permits take their cars back to Fire Island and use the so-called Burma Road, a sand road that winds mainly along the spine of the island, or directly on the beach at low tide.

The permitholders are limited to two round-trips a day between the mainland and the island from the Monday after Labor Day through the Friday before Memorial Day.

The seashore code of regulations defines year-round homeowners as those who "physically reside in their fixed and permanent homes on the island continuously, except for brief and occasional absences, for 12 months of the year."

With 4,000 homeowners in the 17 communities and 300 who live in their houses year-round, the permit system is a heated issue. Many permitholders do not live year-round on the island, contend those who do. But the proof is another story. Local officials say they rely on the homeowners to tell them who is coming and going and how often.

In applying for a permit, which has to be renewed annually, applicants first have to approach Islip and Brookhaven Towns, which make recommendations to the Federal agency.

In Islip, which covers most of the communities on the Island, officials rely on the advice of the Fire Island Advisory Board, which is made up of five homeowners who belong to the Year-Round Residents' Association.

Frauds account for a significant allotment of the permits, and year-round residents who need permits can spend years on the waiting list, a lawyer, Lawrence E. Kelly of Sayville, said.

"It's a millionaire's plaything to have this permit," Mr. Kelly said. "It's a toy they don't want to give up. They are just using their cars to go to their homes at their leisure rather than park and take the ferry." Mr. Kelly said he was representing Ms. Tannen at no charge in the driving case "because what's happened to her doesn't make sense."

"If she wanted to work off island after dropping her kids off at school," he added, "she couldn't do it. The Government should work, and this statute should be sufficient to make it work.

At one point, Mr. Kelly said, the regional office of the Interior Department instructed Ms. Tannen to provide the names of permitholders who were not year-round residents.

"If I had ratted on my neighbors," she said, "I would have gotten my permit sooner. But I wouldn't do that. I have to live here."

Mr. Beqaj, chairman of the Fire Island Advisory Committee, agreed about not spying. "Let's put it this way," he said. "The Feds have the means and know-how to police the illegal permitholders. The rangers know who the residents are. It's not the function of Government bureaucrats to install a system by which residents must turn people in."

Chief Ranger Don Weir, who assigns the permits, said that he followed the rules and that people knew that if they falsified information on the application that they were committing a felony. "If someone can find proof that I can take to court I will do it," Ranger Weir said.

"I hate doing this," said the Islip Senior Town Attorney, Ernest Cannava, who recommends applicants to Ranger Weir. "You have a situation where your decision may not be 100 percent."

At a hearing on June 21, Mr. Cannava questioned four applicants for detailed proof of their year-round residency, because the advisory board could not verify that. No action was taken at the hearing, and the cases remain under review.

With telephone, gas and electric bills, affidavits from neighbors and, in some cases, lawyers the applicants responded under oath

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In the interviews, Mr. Cannava presented what he said was evidence that the four were not year-round residents, including letters from neighbors.

"I resent having to come here and prove to a total stranger that I live in my own home," said an applicant who works in Manhattan and parks her car in Captree State Park. A resident had written to Mr. Cannava saying the woman was not a resident.

"It's neighbor versus neighbor, very small townish," the applicant added. "If one person doesn't like you they can write a letter. It really comes down to the old-timers not wanting newcomers on the island."

One interrogation involved Michael Shapiro of Fair Harbor, a contractor for Joyce Leslie, the apparel chain. Mr. Shapiro has had a permit for nine years, but the advisory committee reported that it had not seen him in the community, Mr. Cannava said.

Mr. Shapiro's lawyer presented electric and telephone bills showing that calls had been from the house every few days in the last year. A witness, a Fire Island real-estate agent and treasurer of the fire department where Mr. Shapiro is a fire commissioner, also testified.

"You brought more evidence this year than before," Mr. Cannava said.

"That's because you complained last year," Mr. Shapiro said.

He added that he took business trips when stores were being built and then stayed over near those sites. Projects take up to eight weeks, he said, but then he always returns home to Fire Island.

Another applicant, Minh-Chau Luong-Crouch, who has owned a house in Kismet for 10 years and is a translator at the United Nations, was appearing for the first time. She presented utility bills and affidavits and explained that she has to hitch rides from permitholders to travel to and from the island.

Mr. Crouch responded, "When you get married for the first time in middle age, there are a lot of things you can't change."

His territory is Connecticut, he said. His wife was also asked whether she was ever absent from her home for lengthy periods of time. She replied that sometimes she works the night shift and then stays in Manhattan in a small apartment with friends.

When asked if the audience wanted to comment, Shawn Beqaj of Kismet, 26th on the waiting list of 44 applicants and Mr. Beqaj's son, stood up and said: "I'm not here to be contrary. But in 1984 I gave up a permit for just this reason, I wasn't here all the time. I watch people come in on Friday night and leave on Monday morning. That woman is not there seven nights a week. I don't mean to be malicious, but she is only there three or four nights a week."

Mr. Cannava said the regulations did not specify how many days a week a resident had to be in his house, but how long the resident lives there year-round. Mr. Cannava added that he would ask officials of the seashore to provide information taken from a checkpoint at the edge of Robert Moses State Park, where drivers enter Kismet on a restricted dirt road.

Mr. Kelly said he, too, tried to use that information when representing Ms. Tannen. But Judge Denis R. Hurley of Federal District Court of Hauppauge refused to allow that.

Mr. Cannava said the Year-Round Residents' Association had worked out an accord with the seashore that the monitoring would just be to control overuse and that it would be an invasion of privacy to check it daily.

"The gate is ridiculous," Mr. Beqaj said. "It's almost impossible without human intervention to determine residency. No one steadily makes two trips a day."

Mr. Kelly said limiting the permits to 145 did not meet the needs of the 300 year-round residents. The limit was set in 1987 after hearings and agreement by residents, Ranger Weir said.

Mr. Beqaj said the number of permits was not the problem. "A good one-third of those with permits don't live on Fire Island permanently," he said. "The definition by Congress of a year-round resident is very exclusive. That's why the number 145 is sufficient. When the definition is stretched that number is not enough. It doesn't require a sleuth to figure out who the residents are. The rangers know."

Mr. Danziger, who is on the advisory committee, said: "The system is designed with good intentions and some ability for authorities to make special exceptions. The major flaw in the system is that there is no money for Mr. Cannava to do real investigations. There is no real research done, except by the advisory board, who hesitate to voice our opinion because we have to see these people every day."

Ms. Tannen said her problem continued. Although she has her permit, she has to pay a penalty for last year. On March 10, Judge Hurley said if Ms. Tannen pleaded guilty for one instance in December, two other incidents would be dismissed.

"I have recommended the penalty be set at $1.45," Mr. Kelly said. "That's an appropriate figure, I think."

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A version of this article appears in print on July 9, 1995, on Page LI13 of the National edition with the headline: Ordeal of the Fire Island Parking Permits. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe